R. Kelly does not believe he was represented properly by his former legal team. The incarcerated Chicago singer was convicted of sex crimes in Brooklyn, New York. In a new report from the New York Daily News, Kells filed an affidavit that is critical of the job done by his ex-legal team when vetting jurors for his sex crimes case.
According to R. Kelly, there were jurors who possibly saw the shocking documentary Surviving R. Kelly.
“At certain points during jury selection, I did hear that some jurors may have seen the Surviving R. Kelly docuseries and that concerned me greatly,” Kelly wrote. “I raised my concerns with my attorneys but they shooed me off. I was nothing more than a bystander in the process. … There was no strategy involved in choosing the jurors that sat on my jury as far as I could tell. At least there was no trial strategy that involved my input.”
Kelly was convicted of each count he faced in his New York-based racketeering and sex trafficking case. He will be sentenced on May 4 and faces life behind bars.
R. Kelly’s Chicago trial has yet to start. Hoping for a different conclusion than what he is fighting in New York, Kelly hired Bill Cosby’s attorneys. In a telephone conference on February 17 with U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber, Kells said he wanted Jennifer Bonjean to represent him in the case, which is set for a jury trial on August 1, 2022.
In Chicago, Kelly is facing charges of federal child pornography and obstruction of justice. There are also separate aggravated criminal sexual abuse charges in Cook County, Illinois. He has two co-defendants, Derrel McDavid and Milton “June” Brown, who are long-time associates.